So far in the 21st century nearly a third of a billion children have been sexually abused, most of them multiple times, some thousands of times. 6 out of 7 are girls. Anything you can do to get this message to as many people as possible will help save abused children all over the world, and maybe even some of the abusers. Please read "Save A Child from Sexual Abuse by 3:15 PM" under "First Time Visitor?" May God bless you and anoint this ministry.

Everyday thousands of children are being sexually abused. You can stop the abuse of at least one child by simply praying. You can possibly stop the abuse of thousands of children by forwarding the link in First Time Visitor? by email, Twitter or Facebook to every Christian you know. Save a child or lots of children!!!! Do Something, please!

Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour

Friday, 26 September 2014

Not Just Girls - Nigerian Boys Being Kidnapped or Murdered by Boko Haram

Local police in Nigeria announced Thursday that one of the more than 200 girls kidnapped by the militant group Boko Haram in April had been released this week. Her return was some of the first hopeful news in more than five months.

The #BringBackOurGirls campaign has drawn global attention to the Chibok students' plight. But its focus on the fate of the missing girls has also obscured the brutal truth that Boko Haram does not target only girls and young women but boys and young men as well.

Boko Haram has attacked a wide variety of targets as part of a violent push to establish an Islamic state in the north of Nigeria. Thousands of Nigerian civilians and members of security forces have lost their lives in assaults aimed at military headquarters, bus depots and markets, among other places.

Children have been particularly affected by the violence: Boko Haram has heavily targeted secular schools in an attempt to prevent students from receiving non-religious education -- sometimes killing them. The militant group also forcibly enlists children, especially boys.

Dozens of male students have been murdered in attacks on their schools in the past year. In September 2013, nearly 50 students were killed when Boko Haram gunmen opened fire in the dormitories of the College of Agriculture in northeastern Yobe state. "They attacked our students while they were sleeping in their hostels. They opened fire at them," Molima Idi Mato from the college told the Associated Press in the wake of the attack. He added that the assailants had entered the four male dorms but left the female sleeping quarters untouched.

Several months later, on Feb. 25, 2014, fighters launched an overnight attack against the government college of Buni Yadi, also in Yobe state. Survivors of the assault told investigators from the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, a network of international nongovernmental organizations, that the militants ordered the girls at the college's hostel to go home, marry and never return to school. Between 29 and 59 boys in the dormitory were brutally killed.

The college was completely destroyed in the attack

A 13-year-old boy who survived the killing spree later told the investigators:

We were sleeping in the hostel. We heard the gunshots. I woke up from sleeping. ... Ten boys were in the room. ... I went out of the room. ... I was running. ... I was feeling afraid. ... I had gotten out of the room and I was shot at in the leg. ... The person pointed a gun at me. ... I fell down. ... I was hit with two bullets on my left foot. ... I pretend[ed] like I died ... because if I didn’t pretend, they would shoot me again. ... It felt like 30 minutes.
According to some reports, at least 58 young men were killed in the attack. Many witnesses reported the Boko Haram militants either shot or slit the throats of boys who attempted to escape the burning buildings, but many died in the flames. It is believed that a high percentage of the boys were Christian.

The bodies of some of the boysfrom Buni Yadi college

Just like the girls in the Chibok school, Boko Haram has also targeted boys in mass abductions. The militants are believed to force the children to fight or do chores in the camps.

On Aug. 11, Boko Haram fighters kidnapped nearly 100 boys and men in a remote fishing village near Lake Chad. "They left no men or boys in the place -- only young children, girls and women," survivor Halima Adamu told Reuters. Most of the hostages were later freed by the Chadian army.

According to Watchlist, Boko Haram has forced children to burn down schools and churches, to transport weapons and sometimes to carry out armed violence. Janine Morna, author of a Watchlist report for the United Nations on children and the conflict in Nigeria, said that "Boko Haram abducts boys and girls and, in particular, forces boys to join their ranks or face death."

Watchlist reports that in addition to abducting boys, the militants sometimes pressure them to join by threatening to hurt their families if they don't.A 10-year-old boy who escaped a Boko Haram camp earlier this year said that he had been forced to do household chores for the militants. He said he was captured while living under the care of an Islamic teacher in Borno state.

"Life was terrible in the bush with Boko Haram. We were treated like slaves and always hungry," the boy said.

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Great Quotes

Unless our hearts are filled with pain for the state of our world, we have not begun to sense the heart of God. Charles Price - Living Truth

Islamic Insanity:

“I came to the absolute conviction that it is impossible…impossible…for any human being to read the biography of Mohammed and believe in it, and then emerge a psychologically and mentally healthy person.”- Syrian Psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan

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Prayer

“There is nothing thrilling about a labouring man’s work, but it is the labouring man who makes the conceptions of the genius possible; and it is the labouring saint who makes the conceptions of his Master possible.

You labour at prayer and results happen all the time from God’s standpoint. What an astonishment it will be to find, when the veil is lifted, the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you had been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ.”